Gatekeeper
by Azul Luna Angel
Summary: Beryl enters her village's forbidden forest in search of what everyone, but her, has nightmares about as children. Will she survive? And who will she meet in her search for the truth about the people of her village? D.Gray-Man fanfiction. Allen x OC.
1. Entry

**HEY EVERYBODY! Blue Moon Angel here!**

**So, this is the second story I've written on fanfiction. This one is another -Man one, an Allen x OC. The OC's name is pronounced "Bear-ill" by the way.**

**This story was actually sparked by a thing we had to write in English last year in about a half hour and this was basically what I wrote, only elaborated upon.**

**Disclaimers: I do not own -Man. The song Beryl sings in this chapter is actually "The Requiem" by Linkin Park from the album 1,000 Suns. I do not own Linkin park either.**

**Enjoy!**

Gatekeeper

Chapter 1: Entry

The sky was cloudy and the air was heavy with anticipation. A gust of wind blew, swirling the fallen leaves around Beryl's figure. She stood outside the forest outside her small village in Scotland. She looked up and down the wall of trees, which was now enclosed by a twenty foot tall fence of wrought iron. The bars had been there for as long as she could remember, the mayor of the village saying that because of the fence, the people were safe. By chance, Beryl's father, a seasoned locksmith and weapon forger, was given the honor of holding the one key to the one gate in the entire wall.

Ever since the gate had been built, the villagers were warned to avoid the forest, especially at night. Supposedly, a great evil lurked in its depths, a terror so unimaginable that the very thought of the forest gave every child nightmares. Beryl had never experienced these nightmares, and she could not imagine how anyone could. No one had ever even seen the monster in the forest. All she knew was that for generations people had been disappearing, their last screams being heard coming from the massive oaks of the unnamed forest. After the gates were built, the terrifying occurrences stopped completely. Just because she had never had a dream about the creature, however, did not mean she did not believe in it. When Beryl was five years old, she once walked with her mother along the forest's edge, along the only road that led out of the village. She remembered this day vividly because it was the day she believed she saw the forest's demon. As her mother walked briskly in front of her, Beryl sang and skipped behind, running her fingers along the forest's bars. A burst of wind blew through the monstrous trees, growling as it went, and blowing dirt into her singing mouth. Beryl stopped to cough and when she looked up, deep in the forest, she observed two orbs with slits for pupils peering back at her. Beryl, surprised by herself, was not afraid. The orbs appeared to be curious, they were slowly cocked to the side, their rippling indigo and green colors reflecting the little bit of light filtering through the tree tops. Her mind was stopped in its tracks by the call of her mother, telling her to hurry up.

It was this incident that brought Beryl here today. For ten years, she had wondered what it was she had seen, the feeling slowly eating her up inside, like a parasite. She had not planned on when exactly she would venture into the forest, but Beryl knew it would happen eventually. There was nothing in the village to keep her there anymore. Her mother had died six years earlier, leaving her father to become a psychotic alcoholic. She had no friends, none of the children were like her. When Beryl was born, she had strange black birthmarks on her back. The birthmarks, besides being an odd color, were absolutely symmetrical. The other children of the village deemed her a witch and their parents were not too fond of her either.

Beryl took a deep breath; inhaling then exhaling. With her emerald eyes closed she reached her hand into the deep pocket of her autumn trench coat, pulling out a dirty, oversized key; her father's key-the gatekeeper's key. She stared at it, sitting in her gloved palm, seeming so innocent. It was hard to believe that this little piece of metal was what saved the village from that thing when Beryl was young. She grasped the key firmly in her hand and shoved it into the watermelon sized lock in the middle of the gate. Before turning it, Beryl turned and looked back.

It was almost time for the men of the village to wake up. The sun was peeking over the hills casting long shadows into their lows. Behind one hill was the village, she could see the smoke rising from the chimneys of the early wives, lofting into the morning sky. The dew of the wheat fields glistened in the sunlight, sparkling like sleeping fairies. Shadows were cast onto the ground by the billowing cumulus clouds floating above her. Beryl was well aware that she may never see this sight again; she basked in its glory, possibly for the last time. She turned back to the gate, and turned the key.

The weather beaten tumblers of the lock creaked and screamed as they turned and twisted for the first time since their creation. With a powerful shove, Beryl forced the gate-the gate that was never intended to be opened-wide. Her long shadow stretched between the two gargantuan oaks on either side of the small unused path leading into the forest. Again, for the second time in her life, a considerable wind rushed towards her from the center of the forest, blowing the oak leaves into her face and blowing back her long, brown hair behind her. Beryl picked up her heavily burdened pack from next to her and slung it over her shoulder. She sang a village prayer-

God save us everyone.

Will we burn inside the fires of a thousand suns?

for the sins of our hand, sins of our tongue,

sins of our fathers, sins of our young?

With one last, deep breath. Beryl stepped forward. Again, she was not afraid. Full of fierce determination, she closed the gate behind her, locked it, and walked forward into the place of the village children's nightmares.

The heavy gate would never be opened again.

**So, DID YOU LIKE? I know it was really short but don't worry, this will probably be the only chappy that's this short.**

**If you did, please review! or fav! or rate! or comment! (I LOVE ANY FEEDBACK POSSIBLE!)**

**Next chapter coming soon!**


	2. Frightening Silence

**Hey Everyone! It's me again! Here's the second chapter of my new story. The -man characters finally come show up in this one.**

**Someone should really review this or comment since I've never gotten a review or a comment before! (hint,hint, nudge, nudge, wink, wink!)**

**Beryl doesn't sign in this chapter. I've decided that singing is going to be a legit part of her personality because I like singing, it might be kind of hard to fit in often though...**

**Again Disclaimer: I do not own D. Gray-Man or any of its characters or phrases**

**With no further ado, Enjoy the second chappy! :)**

Gatekeeper Chapter 2

Frightening Silence

Inside, the forest appeared to be just like any other. Beryl had only been in one other forest before this, but they were still similar. The ancient oak trees of this forest towered above Beryl's head, their solid limbs stretching out every which way. The hundreds of layers of plate-sized leaves above her head blocked out any sunlight that there could be in the daylight. Beryl had ventured far enough into the forest that now she could not see any sunlight from around her. A little while ago, she had pulled out her father's old, kerosene lamp. She remembered that her father used to always tell her that though these things were kind of annoying to carry around, they were the most durable objects man had ever created and the fuel lasted for what seemed like forever.

The flickering light of her lamp illuminated the ground below her heavy boots. The forest floor was littered with the completely unbroken but decomposing leaves that fell from the giants above. Beryl could not help but find this to be odd because it did not appear that anything lived here at all, or at least did not walk on the ground. It occurred to her that perhaps common animals, such as deer, died by eating all of the grass that possibly covered the forest floor years ago, since they could no longer get out. It was true that the ground underneath the leaves was completely dirt; there was not a grass blade to be found. Upon discovering this, Beryl looked up from the ground and for the first time, really studied the forest floor. There were no oak samplings anywhere, no holes in the ground for mice to live, no trails below the leaves she kicked over from moles. She then looked up, but to her dismay, the trees were so tall that her lamp light did not even reach the first of their branches.

It finally hit her what she had done. Beryl finally had those feelings that the children of the village experienced when they were young. She was afraid; Beryl felt like an intruder here, in this land of no perceived life or light. It was dead. The ground was barren and there was not even the chittering of a squirrel or the squeal of a newborn chick crying for food to ease her anxiety. With every step she took deeper into the forest the newly fallen leaves crackled and rustled under her feet, sending whispered echoes through the trunks of the watching oaks.

Beryl found herself becoming more apprehensive by the second. Normally, in a situation like this, Beryl would sing to ease her unsettled mind, but not here. It seemed that if she made the slightest peep, the forest would swallow her up forever without a second thought.

She crept among the leviathan roots of the trees, carefully placing each foot, for what seemed like hours. Just when she thought she was going to collapse from the lack of changing visual stimulation and silence, the silence was quietly broken. At first, Beryl thought she was hearing things simply because she wanted something to find so badly, but as she continued along the twisting roots the sound slowly became more prominent. In front of her, Beryl heard the bubbling of a stream. This seemed irrational to her because she knew that there was no stream, river, or brook running through the forest. However, though this seemed impossible the noise was now easily heard, its soft sound mesmerizing and lessening the deafening silence of the haunting oak trees.

Beryl continued walking, faster and faster, the sound attracting her, like a bear to honey, after such a long time in silence. Finally, she reached the source of the bubbling. The ground suddenly became hard and rocky. In front of her was a small natural spring. The cold, crisp water bubbled up out of a limestone rock and gathered into a small pool. About twenty feet from this cold spring was a natural hot spring in the same fashion. Again, Beryl was struck by the lack of life in this forest. Though there were two perfect springs in the middle of the wood no plants grew around them, it did not appear that any animals had been there to drink, and even the springs themselves were devoid of any small aquatic life.

After all of her walking, Beryl had become extremely fatigued. Her eyelids were now heavy, her mind slowing, and her body aching, she decided that any further exploration of the forest that day would do her no good. She set her kerosene lamp down onto a flat, gray rock and plopped her pack down beside it. Beryl crouched down and shuffled through it until she found her straw sleeping mat. She unrolled it on a generally flat patch of dirt about five feet from the cold spring and set the kerosene lamp next to it.

She pulled a small washcloth out of her pack and dipped it into the cold spring. After wringing it out, she lightly wiped down her face and neck, letting the cool liquid drip down her skin. Beryl unstrapped her five foot long broadsword from her back. It was her most prized possession. Before her mother had died, she had learned from her father the art of black smithing, specializing in war weapons. Since she was an only child, the family trade was passed down to her even though smithing was usually left to men. Before long, Beryl had surpassed her father in smithing skills and by the time she was twelve, she had crafted all the weapons for her village's guards. She managed to perfect her smithing after her mother died. She would spend hours making horse shoes, locks, and various weapons. For the past year, she had been crafting and melding this broadsword. It was made from steel specially infused with black obsidian crystals and sharpened on both sides. The hilt was made of blue steel encrusted with other greenish tinted black obsidian and red rubies. The sheath, furthermore, was wrapped in blue and green silks. This sword was the best work she would ever create.

After laying down her sword, Beryl unbuttoned her thick, autumn trench coat. Surprisingly, the forest was rather warm for this time of year, especially since no sunlight was able to get through the thick canopy of the oak trees. The only thing Beryl could think of was that the canopy was so thick that any heat that was in the forest at any point was unable to escape, ever. She lay her trench coat over her straw mat for extra padding. She unbuckled her belt, which was laden with two sharp daggers, a bag of matches, and a compass. Beryl set her belt and her sword next to the mat. She laid down on her back staring up at the top of the trees that she could not see and thought back on her decision to enter the forest. Before she knew it however, she had drifted into sleep, listening to the quiet bubbling of the springs.

Beryl woke with a start. Her kerosene lamp had gone out and she could not see a thing. She had been awakened by a peculiar sound-what sounded like a shout. Beryl could not pinpoint the sound, any sound in this paralyzing quiet echoed off the massive oaks for what seemed like miles. Beryl clumsily rummaged through her pack until she found her bottle of lamp oil. After carefully pouring some into the lamp, she relit it. Beryl, quickly stood up and held the lamp in front of her, and all of a sudden, nothing happened. Just as she had expected, whoever, or whatever, had made the noise was no where to be seen. Beryl couldn't say she was expecting whoever made the noise to be standing ten feet away, but she could hope and it never hurts to check.

After sitting up on her mat for about ten minutes by her reckoning, Beryl finally convinced herself that it was safe enough to attempt going back to sleep, but, just as she set her lamp down next to her mat and lay back down on her bed, she heard it again. This time it almost sounded like whoever made the noise, she could now identify the noise as a voice from a guy, was trying to say something. Beryl's mind set to work. Who, besides her, would be in the forest? Why were they shouting? Was the person her enemy? How far away were they? Should she hide or should she try to communicate with this guy?

After weighing all her options, Beryl made her decision. As loud as she could, while digging through her pack, Beryl shouted. She didn't try to say anything, just a simple shout she figured would suffice. After she shouted, she quick ran to the nearest tree and with one of her daggers, slashed a thick cut about three feet off the ground. Then she slashed another about a foot and a half above it, and continued doing this, crawling up the footholds bit by bit. She continued doing this until she was about 70 feet off the ground. Here, she made deeper, more comfortable, footholds and hand grips and she waited for a response to her call.

Only seconds after she had gotten situated, she heard what she was waiting for. The same male's voice, calling from the forest floor. Beryl could not help but notice that the voice was considerably closer this time, close enough for her to make out that it was saying, "Who's there?" This didn't make any sense. It had taken her around a day's walk while going relatively fast to reach the springs and now this voice sounded like it was almost there already. This made Beryl suspicious. She climbed another twenty feet into the tree before calling back, "Who are you?" She readied herself. The lamp she had left by her blanket barely illuminated any part of the forest that was not in a 50 foot radius of it. Beryl was slightly annoyed by this because she would not be able to see the person until he was just about on her.

The voice replied again. "Are you the one with the light? We're going towards a light right now." Beryl's guard was heightened by this response for two reasons. The first reason was because the voice was extremely close. It barely echoed anymore before she heard the "original" voice and she could tell the person was in front of her to the right. Beryl knew that any minute now, and probably before the next answer, she would be able to hear the footsteps of the person. Second of all, she now knew that the person was not alone; his use of the word "we're" gave that away, whether he liked it or not. She now gave up the idea that she would confront the person once he was visible because the others in his party could easily ambush her before she had the chance to react.

Beryl did not reply to the question about her lamp's light. If she said that it was her light, the perpetrator would have an easier time at finding her, even though she was now far above the reach of its light. If she denied that the light was hers, the group was obviously close enough to be able to tell she was close to the light. Beryl hung onto her footholds and waited, watching the forest floor for any sign of movement.

It was not long until she heard heavy, crackling footsteps on the leaf ridden forest floor. What was odd was that she could only hear that one person was approaching. She decided that only one person was coming from the original direction until she heard voices. They sounded like they were all coming from that one pair of feet. The familiar voice said, "Has anyone heard her answer yet?"

Another, more mature and calmer voice replied, "She has not answered. I would have heard her, but I have no doubt that her voice was coming from the direction of the light, only higher above it."

Damn, they had already figured out the basics of her location, but how?

The familiar voice again. "How much further until we reach that light?"

A different, unfamiliar voice. "A few seconds," it replied in a kind of sultry, melancholy voice.

The footsteps became louder. Beryl slowed her breathing and her heart rate. She focused all her senses on the forest floor where the voices came from. She finally saw a flicker of movement, and before she could react, a mass burst into the clearing around the springs. Beryl was extremely happy her senses, even from this height, were far superior to those of the average person.

She made out four people, three of which appeared to climb down off the back of one of them. One was a tallish male with long black hair tied back in a ponytail wearing a black coat that reached the forest floor. From the looks of it, he had some kind of blade concealed underneath his coat. A second was an even taller, more bulky man with an equally long coat who wore what appeared to be headphones over his ears. The third was a male of average height who a coat with a hood. Unfortunately for Beryl, the hood was up so she could not make anything else out about him. Finally, the man who had carried everyone, as unlikely as it sounded, was a very thin, tall man with a cloak and a thin pointy face. His hair had a large white streak towards the front.

The shortest one spoke first. "What is this? A kerosene lamp? Who uses these anymore?" So this was the one who was calling her. She recognized his voice as the first one she heard.

"Well, the person who left this stuff here will still be nearby," said the tall one with the ponytail. Apparently, he was the one who didn't talk since Beryl could not recognize his voice.

The tall, thin one worked his way over to her makeshift bed. Crap, she had left her sword there. He shuffled through her pack, and then he spotted it. He reached for the sheath that was badly hidden under her trench coat and pulled it out.

"What's that? A sword?" the shortest one asked.

"I'm not sure," the thin one said as he held the huge sheath, "but I'm not sure we should check."

"Why don't we just ask?" the bulky man suggested calmly.

"How would we do that? Is she somewhere around here?" asked the man with the black ponytail.

"Yes, she's watching us right now," the calm one replied again, "she is right up there." With this he pointed directly to where she was hiding. The others looked up and even though she knew the other three could not see her, Beryl tensed up. Damn it, what should I do now?

**So, did you like? Huh? Huh?**

**Like I said before, I would LOOOOVVVEEE a review or comment please! I'll tell you what, the first person who comments on this story will get a picture drawn by me, able to be seen on my deviant art page!**

**Anyway, keep reading my next chapters! The next chapter will be up eventually!**


	3. Swordsman

**Hey everyone! Sorry it took me so long to update. School got in the way :) Thank you to everyone who commented and reviewed! The feed back is much appreciated, sooooo...PLEASE CONTINUE!**

**Oh yeah! Ana turtle12 was the first person to review so that means you win a picture by me! Sooo...what would you like? Tell me, and I'll post it on my Deviantart page. My name is Blue-Moon-Angel.**

**I made Beryl talk/think more in this chapter so you get to know her a bit more.**

**Also, the -Man characters are revealed since apparently some people couldn't figure out who they were.**

**I am planning on getting to the actual plot during the next chapter...so yeah.**

**As usual, I don't own -Man or any of its characters(no matter how much I wish I did T-T)**

**Without further ado, enjoy chapter 3!**

Gatekeeper Chapter 3

Swordsman

The three men stared up in Beryl's direction for almost a minute. The entire time Beryl hardly dared to breathe. She knew that she was much to far up in the canopy for any of them to possibly hear her but she couldn't help it; she was still trying to unravel how the bulky man had located her.

Eventually, the three looked back to the man who had originally pointed her out. The thin one was the first to speak. "Marie, there's no one there."

"If Marie says there is someone there, that means someone is there," said the one with the pony tail as he looked back at Beryl's hiding place.

"Kanda's right," said the short one with the hood, "and besides, look at the that," he said, as he pointed to the trunk of the massive oak.

The thin man and the one with the pony tail, apparently named Kanda, walked slowly towards the base of the tree. Beryl immediately regretted not thinking more before trying to hide. She could have ran around to the opposite side of the oak and then climbed the tree within a reasonable amount of time. Instead, the gashes she had used to climb the tree were easy to spot and would have given away her location, whether or not Marie, as the bulky man was named, had discovered her.

"Well, it looks like whoever this is used these to climb up there," said the thin man as he bent over to inspect the marks. Kanda ran his fingers along the gash with a stern look on his face. "Hmmm..." he growled more than hummed.

"What is it?" said the short one again.

"Marie, can you tell how tall the person is?" asked Kanda, a little bit confusedly.

"Not really," replied Marie.

Beryl was confused by this conversation. Why would they think that this guy could tell how tall she was? But of course, she was still trying to figure out how he managed to find her in the first place.

Kanda looked back at the gashes in the trunk. "Well, whoever it is, they can't be very tall," he said matter-of-factly. "And the person probably was in a hurry, based on the condition of the cuts. I'd say that this person is around five-five." Beryl was surprised. She was 5 feet 4 inches tall, so this Kanda person had tracking skills. Beryl remembered back when she would try to track foxes and deer when she was younger. Over time she had learned how to estimate how big the animals were from merely looking at the marks they left on trails and on trees. One time she had even taken one of her father's clients into the hills to test out a new long bow her father had made him. Just to test the man, she asked him to tell her as much as he could about the deer they were tracking based only on the hoof prints it left in the mud and scratches it had made on a tree nearby with its antlers. The man could tell her next to nothing, except that the deer was a male, which he deduced only because the deer had antlers. Beryl, decided that this Kanda person, and probably the rest of the group, had to be involved in something that made them need to be able to find things, since tracking ability only comes from experience. But what could they possibly be searching for in here? The men in their black and white coats were becoming more and more suspicious to her. Beryl didn't think that any villages other than her own had known about the creature that supposedly made the giant trees its home.

After studying the marks thoroughly, Kanda stood up and turned to the short, hooded boy. "Hey Beansprout, that person isn't an akuma are they?" he said in a serious tone. The short boy turned toward him quickly, seemingly offended.

"It's ALLEN! And no, they are not an akuma. I would have sensed them before we even got here if they were," he grumbled as he looked back up at the dark canopy of the trees.

"Hmph...then I'll be back," Kanda stated as he grabbed hold of the makeshift handles and footholds Beryl had sliced into the tree.

"Wait, what are you doing?" said the thin man, the only one Beryl had not put a name to yet. He stared at Kanda, eyes wide. "We may know that whoever this is isn't very tall, but we also know that this person has at least one knife and is strong enough to cut into and climb this tree rather quickly. Don't you think we should wait a while and think this through?"

Kanda glared back at the man. "I have Mugen and I am the fastest one here. I can fend for myself. Besides, I don't need to explain myself to you," he spat as he turned back to the oak. And with that, Kanda began climbing the tree at an amazing pace.

"Kanda! Come back here you idiot!" shouted Allen after him, but he was silenced by a large hand on his shoulder. Allen turned to see Marie staring down at him over his shoulder.

Marie smiled at Allen then looked up at the tree again. "Don't worry, neither of them will get hurt too badly. Whoever that is, they're a fighter." Allen sighed and looked up at the tree.

"For the sake of whoever that is, I sure hope they are."

Beryl couldn't believe it. Who is egotistical enough to climb an unbelievably tall oak tree to fight someone they know to be armed and who has the advantage of the higher ground, literally? That thought didn't have the chance to linger long because Kanda was climbing so fast that if she didn't do something quickly, he would be on top of her within half a minute. Without a second thought, Beryl jumped sideways from her perch and stabbed her knives into the tree trunk, about four feet away from her perch. She didn't have footholds anymore so using just her arm strength, Beryl began climbing higher, one arm's length at a time. For the first time in years, she thanked her father for getting her into the art of blacksmithing; it had definitely strengthened her upper body.

After climbing about fifteen feet above her original watch spot, Beryl swung her left leg up onto the hilt of one of her knives which was plunged completely into the trunk of the oak tree. She hoisted herself up so that she was standing precariously on the hilts of her knives, facing the rough bark of the tree trunk. It took all her effort to stay balanced on the short metal footholds, afraid that she would slip or that the knives would begin working their way out of the trunk. She peered over her shoulder and saw that Kanda would be at her original perch in about five seconds. She frowned. Beryl had hoped to be able to climb further up the tree. She looked above her head and noticed that she could finally make out the first, behemoth branches of the monster plant; she would have much rather been tucked up in the canopy, but she had underestimated how fast this Kanda person was. Beryl, taking every precaution she could not to make a sound or fall to a terrible death, twisted herself around so that her back was against the tree so she could watch Kanda and the others below more easily. It was also easier to breathe without inhaling the dusty particles off the oak tree this way.

Kanda was below, inspecting her footholds as best he could. Unfortunately, he was too high for even the light of the kerosene lamp below to reach the perch. Beryl secretly patted herself on the back for climbing as high as she did, it definitely bought her time. She momentarily debated trying to climb to the branches of the oak above her. She quickly put that idea out of her mind. The branches were still a good thirty feet above her and there would be no way for her to climb there without Kanda hearing her with how close he was now. Instead, she focused all of her attention on watching the pony tailed man trying to figure out where she had gone. Eventually, he gave up, frustrated with not being able to find where she had moved to.

"Marie!" he called down to the others standing together on the forest floor. The bulky man looked up at him. It was then that Beryl noticed something odd about him. He looked up at them, or more correctly, Kanda, with unseeing eyes. Though she was unfathomably high with the only things keeping her alive being two four inch long knife hilts sticking out of a tree trunk, her bird-of-prey quality eyesight allowed her to see that Marie's eyes had a characteristic glaze over them. "He's blind..." she thought. This baffled her even more, "How the hell did he know that I was up here?"

"Yes, Kanda?" Marie asked, still staring blindly upwards. The other two left on the ground looked up even though they could not see a thing above them; Marie was not the only one blind in this forest.

"Where the hell did they go?" Kanda hollered from the darkness, murderously frustrated, "I can't see anything and the cuts seem to just end!"

Beryl turned all of her attention onto Marie, far below her; she would have liked to see how he kept figuring out where she was. To her surprise he turned away from the tree so that the tree was on the left side of his head and then he cocked his head upward, as if he was listening for any movement in the trees above. Beryl caught her breath. It seemed like he, somehow, was trying to hear her from where he was standing. Well, she was going to make that as hard for him as she possibly could. She froze, like a statue that had been carved into the oak hundreds of years ago, and shut her eyes. For what seemed like an hour, she stood on her knife hilts, plastered to the dusty trunk of the tree, trying her best to breathe without making the smallest essence of a whisper of a sound.

"They are about fifteen feet above you and four feet to your left," Marie finally said with just the hint of an amused tone in his deep voice. "That was more difficult than it should have been."

Before Beryl could even bring herself to believe that he had pinpointed her exact location, Kanda had fired off of the oak's trunk directly at her with what looked like a strange one-sided sword in his right hand. Beryl, fast as a bolt of lightning, dropped between her knives and grabbed hold of the tips of the hilts. She heard a swoosh of fabric against tree bark and looked up as fast as she could to find Kanda balancing on the knives by the tips of his toes. Beryl was lucky; if he had landed flat-footed on them, he would have crushed her fingers and made her fall. Her luck did not last, however, he had found her and seemed intent on at least maiming her.

"Found you," he whispered quietly, only audible because of the utter silence throughout the rest of the wood, and lifted his sword above him to attempt to slash Beryl's hands. There was only one thing she could possibly do. In a split second, and before Kanda had a chance to land his blade, she pulled with all of her strength on the hilts of her knives. The fine steel slipped out of the hard wood of the tree and Beryl found herself falling through the dark with Kanda careening through the air above her to her right. She glimpsed a flash of pure shock in his eyes before he managed to compose himself. She fleetingly had a moment of satisfaction, and the edges of her lips were tickled by a smile.

Beryl looked around through her flying hair in an attempt to find the tree. To her surprise, the tree was within an arms length away from her, even as she tumbled threw the air to the ground. Without thinking twice, Beryl forced her limbs to stop flailing enough to momentarily straighten herself up. With her knives still in hand, she stabbed the one in her left hand into the tree. A sickeningly high pitched screech emanated from the jagged gash created as her knife ripped through the tree, supporting her entire body weight. Beryl slammed into the tree and the wind was knocked out of her lungs. She frantically gasped for breath with her painful lungs as she quickly slid down the tree, scraping her legs and torso as she did so. Suddenly, she heard an ear splitting crack followed by a piercing whoosh as something blew past her ear, and she was dropping again. She stabbed the knife still held in her right hand into the bark of the tree while she was still somewhat upright and slammed into the trunk again. Her fall had slowed considerably, but before she could react, her legs slid down the sloping wood of the massive giant's roots and they met the earth at an unnaturally fast speed.

Beryl was tossed backwards, and a searing pain shot through her shoulders and legs, and she heard a repulsive thud as her head hit the ground. Blinding white lights flickered all across her vision, blinding her after being in the dark abyss of these woods for hours. After about a minute, she recovered enough to think about what had happened. One of her quality, personally crafted knives had broken, but that could be fixed later. Beryl then proceeded to flex and twitch parts of her body. Toes, foot, leg, abs, shoulders, arms, fingers, neck, head...okay, so my spine and neck are intact.

Beryl's eyes widened. Where was Kanda? And what about the other men? She turned her head sideways to find Marie, Allen, and the still nameless thin man staring in her direction from near her lantern. It occurred to her that they probably only saw a twitching black mass lying on the forest floor since the huge root blocked her from being directly in the light. This still left the mystery of where Kanda was. At that very moment, Beryl heard a whooshing sound above her.

Kanda had managed to slow himself down enough to land on the ground feet first then quickly tuck into a roll to absorb most of his fall. He had lost sight of his enemy, who had pulled the things he was standing on, not to mention what was keeping them from falling, out of the tree. He had glimpsed long hair before focusing on stopping himself from smashing into the ground since, apparently, he had underestimated how high up he had climbed. Somehow, Kanda had ended up on the opposite side of the tree from Allen, Marie, and Krory. He had crouched at the base of the tree, tucked into its roots, for a few minutes until he had heard a slight movement from a few feet to his right, then he attacked.

Beryl straightened her head, apparently to quickly for her beaten muscles as an excruciating pain shot through her neck. Kanda was leaping off of the root in front of her, sword drawn, with fiery anger behind his pupils. To her body's dismay, Beryl forcefully rolled to one side as his sword struck the ground she had just been laying on. She quickly propelled herself upward with her bruised and bleeding arms, and managed to scramble to her feet, now in the direct light of her kerosene lamp. She spun around only to see the blade flash towards her face. She ducked just in time and leaped backwards with all the strength her battered legs had mustered. Unfortunately, her legs had not yet recovered from her rough landing and a white hot fire burned in her knees, ankles, and hips. When she tried to land on her feet, Beryl's legs collapsed under her and she fell back onto her already bruised back.

Kanda did not even give her a chance to breathe. He shot towards her and, gripping his sword with both hands, tried to stab her once more. Realizing she was still holding something in her right hand, she brought her arm up and his sword clanged against her artfully crafted knife. Regrettably, her arms were not in any better shape than her legs and under the strength of his arms, hers collapsed onto her chest. In an instant, his blade was stretched across her throat, and as he towered over her dilapidated frame, he had a smug look of triumph peeking through his serious features and murderous eys.

**Sure hope you liked the chappy! Whether you did or not, please review! I can take criticism!**

**I'm hoping to update within a week...but don't get your hopes up...**


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